Butler-McCook House & Garden
Hartford’s Oldest House (1782)
396 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103
(860) 247-8996
Admission
$12/Adult
$10/Senior, Student, or Teacher
$5/Child 6-18
Free for Connecticut Landmarks Members & Children under 6
House Tour
The Butler-McCook House & Garden is the only 18th-century home remaining on Hartford’s Main Street. It is a time capsule of Hartford’s past and the history of one family. Visitors are taken on a guided tour of the house that primarily focuses on the McCook family during the late 19th century and their artistic and intellectual interests. Guests will learn about a family who loved music, art, and travel through explorations of the museum’s collections which include paintings, Japanese samurai armor, furniture, and toys.
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For 189 years the Butler-McCook House & Garden was home to four generations of a family who participated in, witnessed, and recorded the evolution of Main Street between the American Revolution and the mid-twentieth century.
Inside are the original furnishings ranging from Connecticut-crafted colonial furniture to Victorian-era toys and paintings to samurai armor acquired during a trip to Japan. The objects were accumulated over the course of almost two centuries by members of this extraordinary clan, which included physicians, industrialists, missionaries, artists, globetrotters and pioneering educators and social reformers.
The house’s exterior looks much as it did when it was built in 1782. Behind the property is a restored Victorian ornamental garden, originally planned to incorporate the vestiges of an earlier garden by landscape architect Jacob Weidenmann in 1865. Today, the garden is cared for by the West Hartford Garden Club.
The Butler-McCook House is now the oldest remaining home in Hartford. In fact, two of the four remaining 18th-century buildings in Hartford have been preserved thanks to the care of the McCook family. In addition to their family home, they also offered their backyard to preserve the Amos Bull House, which now serves as the headquarters for Connecticut Landmarks.
LEARN MORE
For 189 years the Butler-McCook House & Garden was home to four generations of a family who participated in, witnessed, and recorded the evolution of Main Street between the American Revolution and the mid-twentieth century.
Inside are the original furnishings ranging from Connecticut-crafted colonial furniture to Victorian-era toys and paintings to samurai armor acquired during a trip to Japan. The objects were accumulated over the course of almost two centuries by members of this extraordinary clan, which included physicians, industrialists, missionaries, artists, globetrotters and pioneering educators and social reformers.
The house’s exterior looks much as it did when it was built in 1782. Behind the property is a restored Victorian ornamental garden, originally planned to incorporate the vestiges of an earlier garden by landscape architect Jacob Weidenmann in 1865. Today, the garden is cared for by the West Hartford Garden Club.
The Butler-McCook House is now the oldest remaining home in Hartford. In fact, two of the four remaining 18th-century buildings in Hartford have been preserved thanks to the care of the McCook family. In addition to their family home, they also offered their backyard to preserve the Amos Bull House, which now serves as the headquarters for Connecticut Landmarks.
